Cal-Maine Acquires Creighton Brothers/Crystal Lake Egg Products
The country’s largest egg company, Cal-Maine Foods, acquired the shell egg, egg products and prepared foods assets of Creighton Brothers LLC, including Crystal Lake LLC, for a total purchase price of approximately $128.5 million.
Established in 1925, Creighton Brothers produces, grades and packages conventional and specialty shell eggs for retail and foodservice markets. Crystal Lake produces ready-to-use egg products for foodservice and food manufacturing, including liquid, frozen and hard-cooked eggs, and distributes pre-cooked egg patties, omelets and scrambled eggs.
Both companies are headquartered in Warsaw, Ind., where Cal-Maine Foods previously had no shell egg operations.
Sherman Miller, president/CEO of Cal-Maine Foods, said the main interest was expanding his company’s scale and geographic reach for shell eggs, but “With nearby liquid egg capacity, we further our internal sourcing strategy for key egg-based ingredients for our prepared foods business.”
The acquired assets include commercial shell egg production and grading, as well as an egg products and hard-cooked egg processing facility.
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Dave Fusaro
Editor in Chief
Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.